The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata

Narrated by Callie Dalton

The Wall of Winnipeg and Me refers to a giant of a football player, Aiden Graves, from Canada, now playing for the NFO (National Football Organization) Dallas team, the Three Hundreds, and Aiden’s personal assistant Vanessa. (American football, by the way.) Told in first person by Vanessa, it’s really her story – a young woman with a troubled past, she is determined to make something of herself, even if it includes spending two years washing Aiden’s underwear and cooking him four vegan meals a day. Her eyes are on the prize: paying off staggering college debt and being her own boss as a graphic design artist. Ok, she’s always had a tiny crush on him – but being almost 6’5″ and stunningly good looking, however, don’t make up for the fact that he’s exceedingly hard to work for and probably doesn’t even realize she’s a woman. And Vanessa has finally saved up enough money to go out on her own, so she’s been considering quitting. After overhearing his agent talk trash about her, and Aiden not defend her, however, it’s the last straw – she just walks out.

She’s surprised when, a few weeks later, Aiden shows up on her doorstep, needing a big favor. A really, really big favor – he’s concerned he might get cut from the team, and his work visa will expire. He wants to become an American citizen fast, and he wants her to be his American Green Card Bride. He makes her an offer she just can’t refuse: he’ll pay off her college debt (over $150,000) and buy her a house. It’s too much to resist so she gives in. Now, mind you, he is still not interested in her as a woman – he has laser-focus on his own career, and the word “wall” to describe him is more than just about his size. Think “talking to a brick wall” which completely describes their conversations.

So, we have Green Card Bride/Marriage of Convenience, a sports-player hero, and a scrappy, pulling herself up by her bootstraps heroine. Vanessa doesn’t romanticize their new relationship – she moves into his guest room and also makes it clear she is no longer his assistant, and won’t be posting on his social media and cooking for him unless she is also eating. She is going to really ramp up her graphic design shop while waiting 5 years to go their separate ways. This is a pretty long audiobook – over 16 hours – and it was probably more than 85% of the way through before Vanessa and Aiden realize they have developed a real relationship. Slowly, over months, Aiden starts to widen his scope a teeny, tiny bit to see that Vanessa is someone worthy of his attention. There were so many times it seemed they were starting to notice each other, then Aiden would let her down. It was a slow, slow burn – slower than smoking a brisket (throwing in a Texas reference here) – and only Zapata’s writing kept it from being too agonizing. Zapata manages to build a small community of some of the other people in their lives, other players, Vanessa’s best friend, with references to her family and the disappointments she faced as a child, all of which kept my interest. I will say that I kept expecting the author to reveal that Aiden was a high functioning autistic because he came across as so seriously socially stunted and unaware. He didn’t even attempt a pretend relationship – it was just signing papers, solely to get his citizenship. Vanessa’s unwavering optimism was a plus – she’d had it hard but kept coming up swinging. She was a solid, dependable friend to those who treated her right, and she wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself and her friends when someone did not.

Both author and narrator were new to me. Callie Dalton did a good job of creating the voices of the story – Aiden’s roommate/team member Zac, his agent Trevor, Vanessa’s BFF Diana. She has a young sound that worked well for Vanessa, who is mid-20s. She gave Aiden a kind of monotone, quasi-accented sound that I couldn’t place; it didn’t sound Canadian but occasionally sounded a little bit like English was his second language. This effect increased my speculation that Aiden would end up being labeled autistic – the monotone, not the foreign-ness. Zac had a very slight but authentic Texas drawl; Vanessa just sounded American, no particular accent although she was from El Paso. Dalton was very easy to listen to, although there were times during the 16 hours that she slipped into “reading” with a bit of sing-song, as opposed to a natural conversational pace. It didn’t color my entire listen and I spent many of the hours enjoying the story and the narration (or just forgetting about the narration, which is a good thing).

In the end, this was totally the story of Vanessa. It was on the slow side, but focused on the development of Vanessa’s determination to make lemonade out of all the lemons she had been handed over the years. Almost as important as the gradual developing love is Vanessa’s decision to run a marathon, a thread that runs through the last half of the book and is just as moving, maybe even more so, as her building relationship with Aiden – it clearly underscores her strength, courage and growing self-confidence and added a very uplifting turn to the book. I think The Wall of Winnipeg and Me will appeal to those who want more out of romance than the relationship of the h/h.

[section label=’Audiobook Information’ anchor=’Audiobook Information’]

Melinda

AUDIOBOOK INFORMATION

TITLE: The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

AUTHOR: Mariana Zapata

NARRATED BY: Callie Dalton

GENRE: Contemporary Romance

STEAM FACTOR: Glad I had my earbuds in

REVIEWER: Melinda [button type=’link’ link=’http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F2M2H8I/?tag=audiogalsnet-20′ size=’btn-lg’ variation=’btn-default’ target=’blank’]Buy The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata on Amazon[/button]

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